Hannah Renier biography

Hannah Renier grew up in bedsits, flats and houses all over England, and was educated at ten schools before starting a combined degree at University College London and the Slade, from which she dropped out. After a chequered career as a housewife, mother and traveller, during which she read a lot and wrote a guide to dope smuggling that became Most Borrowed Book in the House of Commons Library, she returned to her senses, and a different university. Thereafter she became a scriptwriter and occasionally presenter of corporate videos, mostly designed to instruct bankers.

Around 1990 she renounced her membership of Women in Film, joined the Society of Authors and began to ghost-write the autobiographies of wealthy individuals willing to self-publish. Some of her unpublished fiction attracted an agent, through whom she began ghosting mass-market paperbacks as well as books for private publication.

Since her first work as a ghost, Hannah had often been called upon to research the history of people and places she was writing about. This had been a hobby since she was nine. Having produced Lambeth Past in 2006 and ghosted several nineteenth-century biographies and history books, she decided to write about aspects of cities she loved. In search of an agent who knew this market, she found her way to Andrew Lownie.

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How I Found the Agency

I was diffident in approaching agents. I was pretty sure that any connection between ghostwriting and writing history, which is what I wanted to do, wouldn’t immediately spring to mind. Andrew Lownie’s directory entries and website were promising, but how on earth was I going to persuade him I could write about London or produce a scholarly biography? Apart from Lambeth Past, a steady seller of merely local interest, my name was on nothing but a few articles and the membership roll of some learned societies. As to the modest shelf full of well reviewed, published history that I had written and researched, I was bound by confidentiality agreements. I faced a credibility gap.

I then noticed the address. A. Lownie’s office is just five stops on the bus from my house. I would beard the lion in his den. …Well, actually, no. I wrote a letter and he agreed to see me. It seems to have worked. He is an exacting agent but tirelessly helpful. If we could all just stick to the directions on his website – sorry, Andrew – his life would be a lot easier and our success rates even higher.